At my company, I am confined to use Outlook as my email client. Outlook is not very smart when it comes to handling text-only, Internet-style email indenting (quoting).

I would wish for an application-independent way to apply the following to selected text:<pre>A line of textAnother line of text</pre>Select both lines -> Magic indent shortcut -><pre>> A line of text> Another line of text</pre>(lines stay selected)-> Magic indent shortcut again -><pre>>> A line of text>> Another line of text</pre>-> Magic unindent shortcut -><pre>> A line of text> Another line of text</pre>-> Magic unindent shortcut again -><pre>A line of textAnother line of text</pre>-> Magic unindent shortcut again -> Nothing should happen

Ideally, the character used for quoting would be parameterizable, but this is really only optional.

I have the constant feeling that AHK could accomplish that, but I don't get the knack of dealing with the notion of 'selected text'.

would wish for an application-independent way to apply the following to selected text:

There're quite a few small utilities for cleaning and reflowing (reformatting) grunged e-mail, some of them listed on the AskMisterEmail.com Other mail tools page, many of them free. They usually work through the clipboard. I recommend Clippy, which I sometimes use myself for minor text transformations. Another program well spoken-of (but not tried by me) is Boxer Software's TextMonkey, which comes in freeware Lite and payware versions. Watch their online demo!

Some clipboard enhancers have similar tools built in, e.g. none other than mouser's own ClipBoardHelp+Spell (CHS). In this case you need more mouse clicks to invoke them, compared with Clippy's hotkey approach. Recent versions of XRayz Software's (payware) ClipCache have similar features. Full-fledged clipboard enhancers might offer more than you want, though very useful to have in themselves.

I'll just put in another plug for my Clipboard Help+Spell program if you do this kind of stuff a lot -- only because CHS lets you create text formatting presets/scripts that you can run on selected text really easily. I use it to format text quite often -- you highlight some text -- hit the CHS hotkey to bring up the menu, choose the Formatting Presets submenu, and then select from your saved presets/scripts.

I'll just put in another plug for my Clipboard Help+Spell program if you do this kind of stuff a lot -- only because CHS lets you create text formatting presets/scripts that you can run on selected text really easily. I use it to format text quite often -- you highlight some text -- hit the CHS hotkey to bring up the menu, choose the Formatting Presets submenu, and then select from your saved presets/scripts.